Women, Sex and OrgasmSexual Practice EffectsComment should be made about the practical implications of the relatively minimal role that sheer amount of sexual practice (as in marital intercourse) has been found to play in orgasm consistency. Years of marital intercourse seem to have rather unimpressive effects on orgasm attainment. It will also be recalled that measures of the elaborateness of the sexual stimulation delivered to women were found to be uncorrelated with sexual responsiveness. For example, number of intercourse positions and length of foreplay had only chance correlations with orgasm consistency. Beyond a moderate level of knowledge concerning primary erogenous zones, the factors facilitating sexual arousal seem to be largely interpersonal, involving feelings of intimacy, closeness, and dependability. Women with orgasm difficulties may irrationally criticize their sex partners for not being sufficiently expert to stimulate them properly. One of the benefits of a thorough analysis of any sector of knowledge is that it clarifies not only what is understood but also what is not understood. If one looks back at the review of the sex behavior literature, it becomes clear that there are certain prime questions concerning female sexuality that deserve priority in future studies. A number of these questions include: 1. Cross-cultural studies are badly needed in which orgasm consistencies of women raised under different conditions can be compared. Special attention should be given to looking at cultures that differ in how much they try to instill anxiety in girls about loss of love and love objects as a means of maintaining control over them. This would provide an opportunity for directly evaluating the formulation that concern about object loss plays a significant role in ways for a woman to reach orgasm. 2. It would be helpful if fathers of women with contrasting orgasm consistencies were studied. To what degree do such fathers differ in the amount of interest they have invested in their daughters? How much do they vary from each other in traits such as dependability, self-confidence, and conscientiousness? On the basis of such information one could test the conclusion that a woman's orgasm potential is significantly linked to whether she experienced her father as a dependable love object. 3. A related question that needs to be probed is the possible role of the sex partner in a woman's orgasm capacity. For example, delayed ejaculation in a man would be likely to give him a greater chance of taking a woman to orgasm during intercourse. It is important to find out whether her feelings about her partner's dependability as a love object influence her orgasm potential. This would probably necessitate a study of married couples. The attributes of the partner reflecting his dependability would be correlated with his woman's orgasm behavior. One would want to evaluate the partner with respect to traits such as conscientiousness and ability to identify with his woman, and one would also want to ascertain how much confidence she had in him. Parallel to such inquiries, it would be informative to have a sample of women keep "diaries" in which they would record their orgasm behavior over a period of time and simultaneously, for the same period, report the major events and feeling states in their lives. Various questions could be investigated. Does orgasm consistency decline when the partner is planning to be away from home for a while? Do crises in the family, such as illness of children or financial difficulties, affect orgasm capacity? If a woman loses one of her close friends does this adversely affect her orgasm response by increasing her uncertainty about the dependability of objects? Does successful achievement influence a woman's orgasm potential? Do periods of sexual deprivation increase subsequent orgasm potential? 4. Detailed and finely etched reports must be secured from a variety of women concerning the perceptual changes that occur as excitement builds up to orgasmic levels. This information is necessary, first of all, to gain a better understanding of how sexual excitement diminishes the woman's perceptual hold on objects. Furthermore, it might prove of value in helping to develop practical procedures that would enable women with orgasm difficulties to recognize and adapt to experiential "object fading." 5. Controlled evaluations are needed of possible treatment procedures for increasing orgasm consistency in women who have response difficulties. Treatments ranging from the simple to the complex should be appraised. For example, one could compare joint counseling designed to reduce the frequency with which a woman's partner displays behavior demonstrating his lack of dependability (such as being away from home frequently) with a more complex procedure that focuses on the history of a woman's relationships with her father and the fantasies she entertains about his lack of dependability.
6. Detailed descriptions and ratings need to be obtained of the manner in
which women experience their sex partners in the clitoral-versus
vaginal-stimulation situation. Does one actually find that the vaginally
oriented woman feels more "fused" with her sex partner and less
responsible for her arousal, whereas the clitorally oriented feels more
autonomous and self-responsible for her sexual excitement? 8. Much more has to be learned about whether clitoral-vaginal preferences are modified by sexual experience. Is there a shift toward greater vaginal preference in the average relationship as a woman has an increasing amount of experience with vaginal stimulation? The fact there seems to be significant correlation between length of marriage and clitoral-vaginal preference would argue against this possibility. However, no information was obtained from individual women as to whether they had observed a change in clitoral-vaginal orientation over the course of marriage or relationship.
9. Another question to be probed is whether the average woman has observed
her clitoral-vaginal preference to change vis-a-vis different sex
partners. That is, does a woman find that she is quite responsive to
vaginal stimulation with one man and unresponsive with another? If so,
what attributes characterize
a woman's
experience of sex with one partner as compared to the other?
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